Portraits on a laundry basket / Universal Cat Law

2015-01-13_Marigold laundry basket nmd

2015-01-13_Zeke laundry basket nmd

Where is Opie? This is an effect of the Universal Cat Law, which was discovered by me after studying the work of Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg. In 1905 Albert Einstein published his famous equation: E = mc2. It was derived from experiments with his two cats named Proton and Electron conducted in 1904. In the equation, E = the energy of the cat; m = the mass of the cat; and c = the speed of the cat.

Adapting the equation to larger systems came in the following year. In 1927, Heisenberg was developing his famous Uncertainty Principle. In simple terms, it states you can know the position of a cat, and you can know the speed of a cat, but you can never know both!

Also playing a part is the “observer effect.” What it says basically is that when you observe something, or try to measure something, you change the state of that something. For instance, you see the cat on the laundry basket. Using a camera as a measurement device, you raise it up to take a photograph. When you take the photograph, the cat is not in the photograph. Your attempt at measurement has changed the energy state of the cat!


One day a light-bulb appeared out of nowhere over my head and lit up. I discovered a universal cat law of physics. My equation is:

n – 1 = p.
n = the number of cats you own. (n > 1) p = the number of cats in your photographs. The law states that it is impossible to get all of your cats in the same photograph. In my case, with n = 3, the number of cats in my photographs can only be 3 – 1 = 2. There are a few occasions when this law is broken. I am still working to find the variables.

As to the question, where is Opie?, we cannot measure where she is, or measure how fast she is moving. We simply do not know.

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